Three old issues of perennial interest have surfaced yet again. Since they are related, I thought I might summarize the situation (yet again) in a single piece, for reference (the FAQs are months old now).

1. Numbers bigger than two, especially those a lot bigger than, say, 500. New twists on all the old suggestions have been presented: using multiplication as well as addition in strings of numbers, using base-three arithmetic (or base-five), extending the meanings of some ordinary words to numerical significance (cf. 'luka') to get ten digits and then use place notation, or inventing new words for the missing digits for decimal place notation. All these proposals have met with little enthusiasm beyond the proposers and the usual objections, practical and theological.

2. What words should we add to or subtract from the vocabulary of tp. For the most part, the number issue can be seen as a special case of this, but this goes rather farther in that the suggestion turn up in every field. Many of the suggestions for additions are notions for which suggested idioms have already circulated and even been put to use, since most have been discussed before. There are a few new thoughts but nothing that obviously is beyond idioms, even though no good ones seem to be available yet. The suggested removals mainly run into the problem that the words involved have a long history of use in the language and would entail extensive revisions in the corpus -- and people's habits (the problem with number revision as well). Again, there was little enthusiasm for any proposal, though a number of objections to idioms that have come into use (as usual).

3. What is tp for/why learn tp? This is the central issue, since most of issues in 1 and 2 are driven (apparently) by different answers to this question. I don't suppose there is a definitive list of answers here, but I offer the following as the most common views that seem to underlie various other things said in discussions of tp.

A. tp is fun. It is easy to learn and progress to a conventional conversational level and yet it offers constant challenges to do new things and to discover others doing new things within its limited resources. There does not seem to be an end to these possibilities and so a small initial investment yields a constant source of enjoyable activity. This leads to various attitudes toward change, depending on how one views the challenges -- and the need to be challenged -- from the starting position.

B. Learning tp is a good preparation for learning a natural language. The ease of tp gets one through the initial problems of thinking in a new framework and introduces some of the variables that will play a role in another "real" language (adjective placement, tenses and the like). It is even claimed that learning tp and then translating it vebatim into another language will give you enough start in talking to people in that other language that expanding to genuine competence comes naturall. None of this has any scientific backing, of course, but enough anecdotal evidence has been presented to make it an intresting approach -- not significant lost and a possible gain.

C. tp is a model minimalist language designed to test how much of everything that can be said can be said in such a language. Subtraction might be significant, if they could be shown not to decrease the scope of the language. Additions, on the other hand, are either forbidden altogether as covering up a failure of the developing language, or are permitted only as part of a modified hypothesis wherein, having shown the language to fail in a certain area, one now goes on to a language that does cover that area and looks to see what new limits there are. No one seems to be doing this systematically, but many people derive arguments for and against suggested changes apparently from this protocol. This notion is fairly fuzzy, but has a lot of inertia behind it.

D. tp is a language for ordinary life that just takes a little extra work to be used there (now -- but it gets better every day). In a way, this starts from position B but is much more practical about allowing additions and changes to meet real world situations. The hope that someone will come up with an idiom for some situation is less important than expressing that situation now as it is going on. So, moderately implausible expressions turn up as nonce forms and get defended or even established. Occasionally, new words are entertained (or old ones revived) to meet current circumstances -- or, more often, the grammar of some word is modified for a new purpose. This view is most favorable to decimal number systems, for example, because we use them all the time (and -- though we don't always get to this -- fractions and decimals and math, too). It is also open to "ungrammatical" utterances (fragments) and colloquial patterns that fall outside the strict linear grammar (prepositional phrases before direct object, for example). The goal here is to be able to carry on an ordinary conversation tp, not quite to say everything that can be said.

E. tp is the ideal language for the ideal life. Here the goal is not to stretch tp to cover everything in your life, but to reorient your life so that everything in it is covered (easily) by tp. You don't need to both about whether dolphins are fish or beast; it is enough that they live in water. You don't need to care whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetable; it is enough that they are edible plant things. You don't need to know whether you have seven or nine sticks; it is enough to know you have enough (mute pona). While living totally in this language is rather difficult in the here and now, approximations to it, being in tp as much of the time as possible, is thought to have certain advantages in life. In any case, this position is obviously not favorable to change, except, maybe, subtractions.

F. Short of E is the notion that translating all one's ordinary life into tp will give one a better grasp of what is really going on, since tp is markedly free of spin words, triggers and the like. So, for example, it would be useful to translate the claims and the programs of candidates for US President into tp as accurately as possible to find out what they really mean. Or perhaps to find that they really don't mean anything in terms of real life. This sort of translation, if honestly carried out, may be useful (it is said on this view) in many situations beyond the political. It has proven in the past to be helpful in episodes of psychological distress (from teenage angst to suicidal depression) as well as making more mundane decisions.

G. At the apex of F and E is the psychological view that becoming thoroughly absorbed in tp will change the way you think in desirable ways, more or less aligned with D and E. This psychological Whorfian (or neo-Orwellian) view has little (no?) scientific support and is rhetorically based ultimately on a hideous bollix in Anthropology on the one hand and a scientific inflation of obvious points on the other, though it is not actually at either extreme nor well connected to them. Like F it is open to "useful" changes, without a very clear criterion for what those might be.

With such an array of choice -- all with several vocal advocates -- it is fairly clear that changes in tp, if they happen at all (but they do), will have to be slow and organic, arising from someone doing something that works and others following suit. Or, of course, ukase from Sonja, which gets accepted.

Mucking about with the vocabulary sorta ruins the experiment, although after certain results are obtained (if they ever are) reductions might make sense. Right now we had best stick with what we have. Incidentally, 'wawa' turns out to have more to do with 'wile' than with 'ken' and ,moli' is not 'pini e ali' , just 'pini e ona'. My death is hard Ragnarok.'namako' is the word for the bit over enough.

Agree with you in that part that tp has redundant things, from one side, and has not some simple but very needed things. For example, a flower. (children are the flowers of life). I want to say it in tp. But, a vague semantics, that I see very clear, do not allow me to do it in a short way.

Incidentally, 'wawa' turns out to have more to do with 'wile' than with 'ken'

For me, these words are going by different semantic strats. So:

wile --> unpa --> olin

jo --> wawa --> ken

moli' is not 'pini e ali' , just 'pini e ona'

I always was thinking that "to finish a life" and "to interrupt a life" is a death and to die (to kill). Formally, it may be describes as "to stop a process", too. And "pini e ona" I see in another semantic field. Someone is trying to enter into house, and I stop him. If I have stopped him, I say "mi pini e ona". And I would like to see him at least healthy and alive ("ona li ali"). And I wish to him "li pini e ali" as later as possible.

'namako' is the word for the bit over enough.

I was writing about "enough", after reading a text in your previous post: "... enough (mute pona)". Therefore, I had done a stratification:

"pona" -- enough -- just 100% (exactly just on a barrier)

"mute pona" -- namako -- bit over 100% (near after the barrier)

"mute mute pona" -- more over 100% (far far from the barrier)

It means that "enough" and "mute pona" are in different semantic strats.

"flower" = 'kasi kule' in standard idiom.I don't see the progression in either case cited and so don't see the parallelism. More explanation, please.strong force -- coition - lovepossession -- strength -- freedom from force

Ah, you think 'ali' means life in a biological sense rather than merely an experiential, social sense. Nope. a good physical life is a serious lack for tp, which has only 'moli ala'. 'pini e ona' is admittedly ambiguous since involving possible deletions. Without deletions, it finished him, with deletions it stops him from/in doing something (boy, I miss 'pake'), 'pini e pali ona'/''pini e ni: on li pali e ijo'

'mute pona' uses mute to mean "measure, amount" not the more usual intensifier or vague quantity. So 'mute pona' clearly means "enough, the right amount" 'namako' means something extra, so more than enough, but usually in the community taken in a good sense, lagniappe, rather than "too much". 'mute ike', which might be "too much" is usually used for "not enough".

Ah, you think 'ali' means life in a biological sense rather than merely an experiential, social sense

Personally to me, I prefer to live in an intellectual world (60%), moral-emotionally (30%), biologically (10%). So, "ali" is about a biology only for 10%. A socium - 30% and a creative (spirit) lab - 60%. And "moli" may be for any of these areas. For example, in an area where I am living there are about one million people who is killed morally by a military (zombie)-TV. Only imagine one million vacuum-cleaners with a human-like shape. It is sad. And I very good understand a difference between "li moli e ona" and "li pini e ona". During last two years, some my friends were "moli" (stopped biologically), some "pini tawa ma" (had left a Motherland), but emotionally they are living on this place.

So 'mute pona' clearly means "enough, the right amount"

There is still one expression: "ali li pona" (a norm). Also, I keep in mind a possible idiom (if you agree): "nanpa pona" (all things are ordered in their places).

'namako' means something extra, so more than enough,but usually in the community taken in a good sense, lagniappe, rather than "too much"

My picture of world will be broken soon In my semantic space a lagniappe is "namako suwi" for "pilin pona". So, "namako pona" - bonus (reserves, more 100% of needed, of enough), and "pilin suwi" - enjoyment. For me, these four words (namako, pona, pilin, suwi) have a perfect mutual order. Any of allowed combination gives an extra narrow sense.

'mute ike', which might be "too much" is usually used for "not enough"

Someone has no money, it is "ike" (formal problems). Someone has unpaid loans, it is "mute ike" (progressive problems). Someone has got a prison for the unpaid loans, it is "mute mute ike" (exponential problems). I see here the perfect mutual order of words, too.

It takes a while for an idiom to develop a connotation of its own, so something of plant and weed and the like still clings to 'kasi kule', but I think it will work eventually.On the other hand, you can't generally force connotation on expressions (though you can build it gradually). So I take most of the rest here as a program of connotation building. I don't, in general, think much of the connotations you are building; most seem unnecessary and unlikely to be used, but go ahead. The cases that are already pretty well established are going to remain, probably, at least for the foreseeable future.

It's crash. I have totally forgotten three principal tp-rules: 1) head-order 2) head-noun, and 3) adjective-tail. So, all my speculations on "enough" (mute pona) were wrong. I have re-read the jan Kipo's comment "So 'mute pona' clearly means "enough, the right amount", and have understood: really a first word is a noun, a second one is an adjective. So, in "mute pona" the word "mute" is a noun, quantity, and "pona" is a property of quantity. As a result, "mute pona" means a quantity, that is good (enough). Thanks, for explanation.

a small Google search reveals that "mute ike" is used for "too much"

There are two types of anomaly: 1) incomplete 2) complicated. If "pona" is a norm, then "ike" is out of the norm: or less, or more..

For example, if I have shoes too small, it is "ike". Or, if I have shoes too big, it also is "ike".So, "mute ike" is an amount out of some contextual norm. We have alone-"mute pona" against doubled-"mute ike".

For "too much" I would like to use: "mute suli" -- a quantity (noun), that is big (adjective) or "mute suli weka" -- a quantity out of range, that is far far away. Next variants (lili pona, lili ike) is unclear for me. I think, "lili" should be a noun here. Then..., it is my supposition, the word "lili" may be used as a child. "lili jan" -- a human child. "lili waso" -- a nestling. I should think it over.